


the price we paid for seven years in heaven

by dancinghopper



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Gwen Centric, Major Character Death but its the one from the show so. does that count?, Post-Canon, arwen? by the truckload. bit of merthur just for kicks? oh yeah we got that too, explaining the pairing in this is just that picture of charlie day and his conspiracy wall, me writing this in a weekend daze and then discovering it’s gwenfest? call that FATE, yeah we got a little morgwen. yeah we got some mergwen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:49:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28665753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinghopper/pseuds/dancinghopper
Summary: Arthur dies, and Gwen does what she has always done.She carries on.
Relationships: Gwen & Merlin (Merlin), Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen/Merlin (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 14
Kudos: 37
Collections: Gwen Fest





	the price we paid for seven years in heaven

**Author's Note:**

> SOMEBODY (me) had a total breakdown this weekend and wrote this with taylor swift’s evermore album on repeat. im starting to think she wrote it specifically about this fic. anyway. this was a total experience and it went from a gwen character study to mergwen and i swear it just wrote itself. and then i discover its GWENFEST! thats fate babey
> 
> i feel the need to say that i am absolutely not trying to invalidate gwen/arthur with this. arthur loved her very much and she loved him just the same and that’s!! fact!!! everyone involved in this has two hands and they all love each other very much so its FINE.

Arthur dies, and Gwen does what she has always done.

She carries on.

***

For a long time after returning from Camlann, Gwen holds Arthur’s spirit in her heart. She sends patrols, scouting missions, she scours every inch of the country in search of him, because he is _alive_ , she feels him in her chest, a bright white spark of light that has yet to give out. When Gaius tells her he is with Merlin, that they are searching for a way to save him, she feels the relief ebb through her, the knowledge that Merlin will keep him safe, as he always does. She allows herself to breathe.

And then Arthur is gone.

Gwen doesn’t know how to explain it, but it is noon when she wakes from a doze, atop the covers of her and Arthur’s bed, papers and plans strewn about her, and she knows that he isn't coming home.

Gwen is calm when she rises. She is calm when she walks to the council chambers, her shoes making soft noises on the stone floors, her dress dragging along behind her with the usual swish of fabric. She is calm, even, when Leon sits her on the king’s throne, when she is declared sole ruler of Camelot. Apparently there is not time to hesitate over such things. Gwen knew that already, from witnessing Uther’s death and Arthur’s crowning all within a few hours of each other, and so she is calm amongst the chorus of mourning. Hers, after all, is a private affair.

Merlin misses it, though Gwen is not sure she blames him. She cannot imagine trekking back to Camelot with the knowledge that it contained no Arthur — how to return here when home lies in the opposite direction? There is no Camelot without its king. Gwen runs the pad of her thumb over Arthur’s ring, his final gift to her, and presses it to her lips.

Gwen has lost so many people.

It takes Merlin a further two days to return, and in those days Gwen keeps herself still and steady. She does not cry, not once. Gaius tells her she is in shock, and Gwen scoffs — how to tell him that this is what she is due? It is a guard who announces Merlin’s presence, slipping into the council chambers unobtrusively as they close for the day, leaning close to speak in Gwen’s ear. She fixes her gaze ahead, jaw quivering but expression even, the way she has learnt to maintain it. She nods to show she has understood. “Please, send him in.”

The guard withdraws. Slowly, the council members trickle out. Leon waits for her, as he has taken to doing (he worries after her, and she him, and it has been easy to fall into this routine), hovering by her side to offer her his arm. Gwen dismisses him; it frightens her, sometimes, how easy it is to do.

“Leave us,” she says, eyes on the table. Leon makes a small sound of protest, confused, and then stops when he notices the room’s new occupant. His breath leaves him all in a gust; she hears his armour clink as his shoulders sag.

“ _Merlin_ ,” says Leon, relived, and Guinevere presses her tongue hard to the roof of her mouth.

“Leave us,” she repeats, and Leon does. She hears him touch Merlin on the shoulder as he leaves, murmuring to him, and closes the council doors with a clunk that is too loud to Gwen’s ears. Merlin shifts on his feet. Gwen drags her eyes up from the table to look at him, and while she knows, logically, that he looks the same as always, she feels she can see the despair written in every inch of him, down to the threads of his tunic.

The pain stretches taut between them like a rope. Neither of them speak. It is hard to be faced with a mirror of her grief; without permission, the tremble in her jaw increases to a violent wobble. She thinks of Arthur, the steadfast expression he wore, face as cool and serene as if it were carved from marble, but all this does is make her more upset. The sob works its way up from behind her ribs, and Gwen bites her lip hard enough to draw blood as it chokes its way through her throat, and finally bursts from her with vicious energy — she weeps.

She heaves great ragged breaths that echo in the empty chamber, breaking Merlin’s gaze to hide her head in her hands. Even as she is crying she is aware, as she has to be now, of being watched, aware of all that awaits her as Queen, the battles she must face. She does not even have room to grieve properly.

When she finally composes herself and looks to Merlin she find him crying too, stood stonily by the door with his hands clasped behind his back, jaw clenched and tear tracks on his cheeks.

“I’m so sorry,” Merlin says, wretched. “I’m so sorry, Gwen.”

Her heart hurts. She extends one of her arms, palm up, and Merlin stumbles hesitantly towards her, but discards her hand to throw himself on his knees at her feet. He tilts his head to her desperately. The moment of clarity persists.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, again. “It was my fault, I couldn’t save him, I’m so _sorry_ —”

Gwen puts her hands on either side of his head and Merlin bows it to her, pressing his forehead to her knees. She can’t speak. Merlin sobs into her skirts, and she strokes his hair back from his face, blinking down at him in uncertainty, thrown from her own upset. There is too much grief to allow it all out at once.

“Merlin,” says Gwen, softly, and lowers herself from the throne to the floor in an awkward press of limbs. She hugs him to her, clenching her fingers in his coat, feeling with sickness the parts of the fabric hardened by Arthur’s blood. “Merlin, sweetheart, it’s alright, it’s _alright_ —”

They trade these words back and forth, huddled on a floor they both used to scrub. Gwen wonders when lying started to come so easily to her, if it was when she lifted her head for a crown or before that; nothing is alright, and it probably never will be again. Arthur is dead, and Camelot and Gwen stand without their king.

She presses her cheek to Merlin’s temple.

“I’m so glad to see you,” Gwen says, fingers tight in the hair at the nape of his neck. Merlin grips at her waist. “Thank you. Merlin, thank you.”

“I’m so sorry,” he says. Gwen clings. Her gown is getting dirty.

“You kept him safe. You kept him safe to the last, Merlin. Thank you.”

They stay there a long while.

***

Gwen understands that Merlin does not want to talk about the details of Arthur’s death, and she sympathises, but she also must know. She has a right to know. Merlin’s knows this, too, and he also knows better than to delay it; a convening of the council is called for the next morning, and Merlin sits at Gwen’s left and tells them what happened. Gwen suspects the extent of its honesty is highly edited, or at least concealed, but she does not doubt that it is truthful.

Merlin skirts around the nature of Arthur’s rescue. He admits Morgana is dead, and only by reading between the lines does Gwen discern that he is the reason why, for he makes it sound like Arthur’s victory. He glosses over their last moments together. When a command for more detail is requested, Gwen sees the twitch of his jaw and latches onto his hand with her own, clenching her fingers tightly around his, so forceful that her knuckles turn white.

“Merlin has my absolute trust,” says Gwen, coolly. These are Arthur’s men, Arthur’s council, and she understands their desire to know news of their king, but it is not the king of whom Gwen and Merlin speak — it is their friend, their loved one, and they do not owe this to them. “He has the absolute trust of my husband, and has done for over a decade. You do not question the validity of his account. He speaks the truth.”

Merlin shifts under her touch. She pretends it doesn’t read as guilty.

***

Later, Gwen sits in Arthur’s alcove, her left hand fisted and raised to her mouth so that her lips brush the ring he gave her, cool metal against skin. She has always called it Arthur’s alcove, in the same manner that this has always been Arthur’s room. Too many a time did she see him perched on this windowsill, overlooking his courtyard and wrestling with some decision or other, some crisis of faith or of will. She sits in it now, and imagines she is overlaid with his ghost.

Gwen leans her forehead against the glass, eyes open but gaze absent. So many people, and all of them gone. Her mother, her father, her brother. Her first love. Her second. Her friend. Her husband.

Gwen has lost so many people.

There is much to do. If she is truthful, many of that which is to be done is by her own design. Arthur’s memorial, long overdue from her announcement as Queen three days ago, must take place. Lords and ladies must be visited, and be assured of her capabilities. Meetings with neighbouring kingdoms need be arranged; Albion is in a state of flux, reeling from Morgana’s defeat and the end of the war that plagued them all, and it is Gwen who stands in its dissipation. There is Arthur’s legacy on her shoulders.

It is late, but Gwen uncurls her legs from beneath her, and fetches her husband’s cloak from the dresser. It is a worn, blue thing — in fact she thinks it might once have been Merlin’s. She presses her hand to it and doesn’t fight the tears that spill silently over her cheeks for several minutes, just waits until her breathing resumes normal and she can wipe them from her face. She fastens the cloak round her shoulders, tying it under her chin.

Gwen is the Queen, and she can do what she likes.

She walks along the halls of the castle, yellow and flickering in the torchlight, empty and full of ghosts. She chases them down one by one, lingering with her hands on stones, trailing her fingers across walls as she passes. She takes two lefts and a right up the stairs, to a room that is no longer guarded, that sits empty and desolate with the worst ghost of them all.

The door is not heavy. Gwen enters with ease, uses her candle to light the others, moving about as methodically as she used to; first those by the door, then the table, then the bedside. She goes and fiddles with the drawn curtains, tugging them closer together. She sneezes twice from the dust.

It was never emptied, after. Gwen doesn’t know why. Arthur never ordered it, but he never ordered the room closed up, either. It was Gwen who draped the sheets over the chairs, and the bed, just as it is her who now removes them, putting them in a pile behind the screen. Each surface is thick with grime. Running her finger along the table makes a streak of clear wood appear, rich and dark and glossy. The flowers in the vase have died. Gwen used to refresh them, though she doesn’t anymore. Hasn’t for some time.

Gwen sits on the bed, and gives herself something else to do. She will not ask Leon — he will, she thinks, be hurt not to be asked, but Morgana has caused them all such pain already, and Gwen does not wish to add to it. She seeks out Sir Bedivere instead, gives him leave to use whatever resources he wishes, and if he is surprised by her request then he makes a good show of hiding it, and Gwen agrees with her husband’s assessment of finding him a good sort. She does not tell Merlin what she has done.

***

“Sir Bedivere’s patrol has returned,” informs a knight, someone whose name Gwen has not yet learnt, and she pauses with her quill above parchment, her chest still. Those beside her take note of her action, and mimic it out of respect. Gwen is very, very careful as to the expression on her face.

“Was he successful?” she asks.

The knight affirms it. “Yes, your highness.”

Gwen puts down her quill, and laces her fingers together atop what she has written, her countenance composed. She is inviting her fellow rulers to convene together, to discuss what comes next. To achieve peace, if they can. It is important. It is stately. It is what Arthur would have done.

But this is what _she_ would have done.

“Thank you,” says Gwen. “Is he in the courtyard?”

“Yes, your highness.”

She nods, and directs a smile, too small, at her companions. “Please, excuse me.”

She has not quite kicked the habit of acting equal to her subjects.

Gwen follows the knight down through the castle’s corridors, walls and floors and tapestries that belong to her, now, and is escorted down to the courtyard, where the bodies of the battleground still lie awaiting rest. It is hard to bury so many so quick. The stench is awful; Gwen puts her handkerchief to her nose, an old silken thing with terrible embroidery that she has been fingering all day, and holds her head high as she walks among them. Sir Bedivere awaits her.

“My queen,” he says, and bows. His men have dispersed, which she appreciates. He nods to the sheet-covered body at his feet. “As you wished.”

“Thank you,” says Gwen. “You may go.”

He leaves. Gwen is alone, in the courtyard, with her first and oldest love. She kneels beside her, finds the body’s wrist under the sheet and holds it, unsure as of yet if she can bear to see what lies beneath. The wrist is cold and stony under Gwen’s hand.

“Hello, my lady,” she says, with too many words in her throat. They are useless, though, if not given to their intended recipient, and so she lets go of the wrist to grip the sheet’s corner, near the head. She closes her eyes, draws it back. The smell gets worse. Her hand is pressed tightly to her nose, handkerchief scrunched between. Gwen opens her eyes.

She looks her fill. Then she covers the body back up, tucks the sheet carefully around Morgana as she used to before bed, and leaves.

***

Her body is burned discreetly, and Gwen does not tell anybody of it, except those with whom she entrusts to prepare the pyre. She thinks, terribly, that she is fulfilling Morgana’s worst wish, that she is burning her for her crimes, and so takes care to fashion it lovingly and with flowers, a cremation fit for the king’s ward, for the very first person Gwen loved, and the very first person who loved Gwen. When it is just her alone with the flames, the entrusted handful dismissed to the castle, Gwen wonders if she will always be the last standing at her loves’ funerals, if she will one day watch Merlin burn, too. She misses Elyan desperately.

Gwen has lost so many people.

She stays there for hours, from dusk till well past midnight, till the entire thing is nothing but ash and one last, persistent spark of flame. At last she pulls the book she requested from Geoffrey out beneath the cloth it is wrapped in, and reads the incantation clumsily in the dying light, her mouth curling awkwardly around unfamiliar, guttural sounds, a heavy feeling in her stomach. Morgana’s last rites, as a priestess of the Old Religion.

Gwen finishes, and tucks the book back away. She considers saying something, but she is not sure there is anything left.

***

Merlin suffers. He feels out of place, Gwen thinks, with no Arthur around to tease him, and jest him, and drag him here and there and everywhere while he gives a token protest. She gives permission to Leon and Percival to invite him on patrols and hunts and anything else they wish to, but Gwaine’s absence is a harsh twist of the knife in all their guts, and she is not foolish enough to think the loss of three of their party can be ignored. Merlin stays in the physician’s quarters, picks up his apprenticeship, and Gwen sees him rarely despite how much she seeks him out, and when she does he is jumpy and skittish.

Seven days after Gwen is pronounced Queen, Gwen sends for Merlin’s mother. She ensures Hunith receives every assistance in making the journey from Ealdor, and it is she who first greets her at Camelot’s gates. Gwen has not seen Hunith since William, has no reason, even, to expect that Hunith will recognise her, and particularly not clothed in such finery, rather than the servant girl who wielded a sword. When they meet Hunith drops into a curtsey in front of her, greets her as she should a queen, but does not colour when Gwen takes both her hands in hers, though the action is too warm for strangers.

“You may not remember me,” she begins, haltingly, and Hunith smiles at her.

“I do, my lady,” she says, kindly, and Gwen wants to throw herself into this mother’s arms, cry recklessly into her shoulder like she would her own. “I am so sorry for your loss, your highness. I know what it is to lose a husband.”

It is perhaps the first time Gwen has not wanted to run someone through for saying so. Instead she smiles, as she is learning to do, for it is easier to carry the grief with love.

“Please,” says Guinevere Pendragon, Queen of Camelot, and offers Hunith her arm, “allow me to escort you to Merlin.”

Merlin is working, as he always is, now, with Gaius, and he is making some terribly difficult looking potion when her and Hunith arrive, equipment perched precariously on Gaius’ desk. He near goes white when he sees Gwen, fumbling with his glass instrument, and then it falls and shatters when he sees her companion.

“ _Mother_ ,” breathes Merlin, and they rush to each other, while Gwen stays with her hand on the doorknob, pleased and deeply saddened all at once. She meets Merlin’s eyes, wide and stunned and wet, over Hunith’s shoulder, and nods at him. He squeezes his closed, and Gwen hopes she has done well. She has lost so many people, and she could not bear to lose her best friend, too.

***

Gwen is reading her correspondence when Merlin comes to find her, later in the evening than is proper, but not later than he would have called on Arthur, which makes Gwen smile. The letter in her hand in thick and weighty, its contents and presentation simple though they bear a royal seal, and she has been pondering it since dinner, tilting it this way and that, smoothing the parchment between her fingers. It is written in Mithian of Nemeth’s careful hand, looping across the page, and it has taken her some time to read the letter in full, for she keeps abandoning it and then resuming. She has just lifted it again when Merlin enters, his shoulders hunched high to his ears. Their conversation is stilted and awkward, and Gwen does not know how to make it otherwise; she enquires after his mother, if her room is acceptable, makes offers upon offers to make her stay more comfortable, and all the while Merlin looks like a particularly nasty tapeworm is crawling around in his throat.

“Gwen,” says Merlin, quietly. “Please stop.”

Nobody calls her Guinevere anymore. There is nobody left who would. It has been sixteen days since she last heard it, and she wants more than anything to hear Arthur’s voice, to hear it said with that inflection Arthur does whenever he is annoyed or happy or exasperated or just stupid-in-love with her. She longs for just one person to say Guine- _vere_ , to feel his hands on her back and under her chin, to have him curl around her. The feeling of missing him is so strong she feels she will break with it. Merlin fiddles with his hands, and Gwen is suddenly very afraid.

“Please don’t go,” she says, too quickly, and reaches across the table for his hands. Her voice breaks. “Please, please don’t go, Merlin, _please_.”

Merlin trembles from the effort of keeping himself together.

“I’m sorry,” he says, avoiding her eyes. “I can’t, Gwen, I can’t stay, not without— not without Arth—” He stops. “I don’t belong here.”

“Of course you do,” says Gwen, desperate. “Of course you do, Merlin, you could never— _nothing_ could ever make you _not_ belong here. This is your _home_.”

“I just can’t,” says Merlin. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

His jaw is set. Gwen has known him too long, and too well, to not see that he means it. That he’s really leaving. Gwen feels her face quiver, pressure rising up behind it, her mouth twisting. She shakes her head.

“No,” she says, and clings to his hands, running her own up and down his arms, dragging his hands up to press her cheek to them, tears threatening. “No, Merlin, _please._ ”

Merlin sniffs, pulls himself together.

“You’ll be a good queen,” he says, his lips pressed closed, and nods to himself. He leans across the table to kiss her forehead, lingering there even as he pulls his hands from her hold, touching her cheek just briefly. “Bye, Gwen.”

“ _Merlin_ ,” begs Gwen, but can’t even see him well enough through her tears to latch onto him and stop him leaving. The door closes with the soft click of the latch, and Gwen throws her head down on her arms, sobbing into Arthur’s table. She found him like this asleep once, collapsed atop his letters, head pillowed on his bicep. The hurt is so sharp that it cleaves through Gwen’s chest like a knife.

With a distraught yell Gwen thrusts the desk away from her, ink and parchment spilling across Arthur’s floor. She sinks to her knees, clasping her forehead as the headache makes itself known, one palm on the ground to hold herself up.

Gwen has lost so many people.

***

Peace talks happen in Annis’ kingdom, so it is there Gwen must go, with none of her old friends at her side, for it is only Leon that she trusts with Camelot in her absence, and so there he is staying. Percival and Gaius, likewise, are needed, and the only familiar face Gwen travels with is Sir Bedivere, while she tries not to look so desperately lonely as she feels.

She misses Arthur.

She misses him on the horse ride to Caerleon, which takes place in silence. She misses him when she is introduced as true equal to Queen Annis, and stumbles through her greeting, feeling unsure and clumsy in front of this woman, as though her servant roots are on full display. She misses Arthur when she is led to her chambers, too big and unfamiliar and empty, and she misses him when she lies in the bed at night, fingers curled tight in the bedcovers at each unexpected noise from the castle. She is well used to poor sleep by this point, but it is the first time her grief has been witnessed by those outside of it. She feels she should be able to shoulder it better, be a better mould of what Arthur left behind. Her sense of inadequacy increases.

Gwen is silent through much of the talk. The parchment folded into four in her lap boasts of her ideas, her thoughts, her wishes, but the lack of Arthur at her side is so acute, so newly felt that she cannot bring herself to voice them for several days. Instead she sits, she listens, she makes notes of those with whom she thinks she will find agreement. At feasts she learns to keep her face still when her husband is mentioned, to keep her clenched fists hidden from view.

She wanders the gardens, turning Arthur’s ring over and over in her hand, running her thumb across the engraved dragon, and thinking. She reminds herself that this was Arthur’s choice. It was he who chose her as his successor, he who had faith in her. She wishes she did not believe him blinded by love. She presses her lips together.

“Oh, Arthur,” murmurs Gwen, and tries to remember what it was like to kiss him. She is then happened upon by the Queen of Nemeth, who greets her with kindness, and offers to walk with her back to the castle. Gwen accepts. She is quickly learning that Mithian is sympathetic to her, and that she is pale and wears only white. The first time Gwen saw her in council she thought to herself that she looked like an angel, and so far this impression has not been proved wrong. Well, that is not true. Her first thought was of Morgana, of that silver dress Gwen used to dress her in, dark hair curled in gentle waves down her back, but Gwen is trying to think less of her dead friends. It seems to do no good to anyone. She slips Arthur’s ring back on her finger, and listens to Mithian’s condolences.

“I was grieved indeed to hear of Arthur’s death,” she says, and Gwen bestows her the same smile she has given to everyone else, though the pain in Mithian’s eyes is most genuine. “I’m so sorry, Guinevere. You must miss him terribly.”

“Yes,” says Gwen. She redirects the conversation. “Certainly in times such as these. It feels strange to negotiate outside of Camelot.”

“You’re doing very well,” says Mithian, squeezing her hand, and Gwen thanks her for the compliment. It is the next day that Gwen finally finds it within herself to speak up, to command the chamber’s attention, though their discussion is drawing to a close, and peace seems certain, and what Gwen has to say may now draw it out even longer. The parchment with her thoughts is hot in her hold. She hopes Arthur will forgive her.

“I wish to return magic to Camelot,” Gwen says, “and I urge you all to do likewise.”

Startled exclamations arise, as expected. Gwen holds herself still, her head raised in defiance, and lets the others get their objections in one at a time, listening to them all.

“My lady,” objects one of the kings Gwen is not yet familiar with, “forgive me, but your husband _died_ fighting against magic. All of us suffered at Morgana’s hands, and gave a good deal to stop her reign, and you wish to return sorcerers to their power?”

Gwen turns her gaze on him.

“My husband,” Gwen says, her palms flat on the table so she does not fidget, “died fighting for peace. Morgana was defeated, yes, and the war is won, but many of her forces remain. It is my firmest belief that there will be no peace in Albion whilst magic-users still suffer persecution. The land cannot survive such a divide in our people. If we do not act, there _will_ be another revolutionary behind which they rally, and another war.”

She lets this sink in, and continues, calmly: “I will not let the peace my husband died for perish by making the same mistakes that led to it in the first place. Camelot intends to repeal the ban on magic. I hope that I will be joined in the act.”

“And your council supports this?” inquires one of the kings. Gwen’s voice is level. She imagines Merlin is with her, wishes fervently that he was.

“I have the support I need,” says Gwen. There is silence as the rulers contemplate this, and then Queen Annis clears her throat. As the longest ruler of them all, she invokes a deal of respect from the others that Gwen does not. Gwen would very, very much like to have her on her side.

“Queen Guinevere,” she says, tilting forward on her elbows, “do not be offended, my lady, when I ask if you think this is truly what your husband would have wanted upon his death.”

“I will never know,” admits Gwen, the ring a heavy weight on her finger. She hopes that Arthur would have agreed, but more than anything the ring is proof that he trusts her judgement, and this is it. “But I do believe that Arthur fought for peace, and prosperity, and I know that he would have done anything in his power to achieve this. I believe, that had he known — what I know — that he would have done the same as I have suggested.”

“And what is it that you know?”

“That magic is not inherently evil. That it is our actions, our laws, that have corrupted those with magic, by forcing them to live in hiding, and in states of constant fear. We have pushed them to the very brink of society, yet are surprised when they attempt to change this. Are their motivations not understandable? We have lived in peace with magic users once before. There is no reason not to do so again.”

Annis considers her. She steeples her fingers in front of her, lips pressed to them, and Gwen holds her breath. When she speaks, she speaks slowly, carefully.

“I agree that it was peace which Arthur sought,” declares Annis. “He spoke of it many times. I admit, also, that there is merit in your concern, your highness. I do worry about the remainder of Morgana’s forces. I am willing to consider the return of magic to Albion.”

Gwen swallows, and is thankful for the chair propping her up. She inclines her head.

“Thank you, my lady,” she says. The sunlight pierces the window, illuminating their chamber, and Gwen feels, at last, that she can do some good to the world. The matter is debated upon further, and three of the five kingdoms leave the peace talks in agreement that they will work to reintegrate magic to their societies. The remaining two, gratefully, are not so opposed as to say the existing treaties between the five of them will not hold in wake of this. When all is signed, Gwen holds the ring to her mouth and whispers to it.

“Well done, my love,” murmurs Gwen, and imagines Arthur’s hand on her shoulder. Her heart feels lighter, and she invites Mithian to come visit whenever she chooses, for she should like to see her again, to strengthen the bond between their kingdoms, as she is one of the three who has agreed to reinstate magic. Mithian kisses her cheek as they part, hands clasped between them.

“I’ll look forward to it, Guinevere,” she says, sincerely. “I have fond memories of Camelot.”

“Then I hope you shall find it lives up to them,” says Gwen, and sets off on her return home, Sir Bedivere at her side. Her success with the treaty brightens her, and she finds herself willing to talk on the journey back, to engage in some of the banter she has so dreadfully missed. She learns the names that belong to her squadron of knights; Olyrid, Aelfric, Afan, Gelert, Myrick. At night she lights the fire when no-one else can, and entertains them all with stories from the smithy. She does not make them laugh so much as Gwaine would have, but it is not so bad a start.

***

It is too soon after Arthur that Gaius passes. Merlin is returning to Camelot to see him, though Gwen knows not how he was contacted; she has been ignorant of his whereabouts since he left two seasons ago, though not by her choice. Gaius, upon diagnosing his own illness, gives them warning of what is to come, and of its complete failure to be preventable, and this is when her friend is sent for.

“Tell me what it is,” begs Gwen, at his bedside, his old hand clasped in hers, hot and wet from her tears. “Please tell me, Gaius, I’ll spare any expense, for there must be someone who can help. A healer, a druid, someone who practices — the law’s nearly through, I’ll speed it up just for you, I promise. I’ll send for Alice, you always say nobody can heal like her—"

Gaius pats her cheek, shushes her babbles.

“There is no cure, your majesty,” says Gaius, smiling faintly. “I’m simply an old man. Let me pass in peace.”

“No,” says Gwen, stubborn, and Gaius laughs at her, covers her hand in his weary own, skin like paper. It is raining.

“You have done well for this kingdom, Gwen. I confess I’m rather proud of you.”

Gwen kisses his hand, wipes away her tears. “How long do you suppose you have?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly say. Weeks. Days, if this old relic of a heart gives out.”

“Do not say that.”

“Hush, my dear,” says Gaius. “Fetch me a cup of hot water, would you? And tell that boy of mine to hurry along, he is always far too late for his own good. I shall probably die before he comes just to teach him a lesson.”

“Of course,” says Gwen, and kisses him again, heedless of the fact that she is the Queen and should not be fetching things for anybody. She stirs honey and herbs into the water at his direction, helps him put things in order, in preparation for the new physician. Gaius bestows her with a worn old journal.

“This is my life’s work, you know,” he says, and Gwen hugs it close to her chest.

“I’ll have it published,” she says, with her kindest smile. “Have Geoffrey put it in the library for all to see.”

“Oh no, my dear,” says Gaius, “far too many errors for that, I’m afraid.”

“Then I’ll have Merlin correct them.”

Gaius smiles at her.

“Please, Gwen,” he says, “do not let Merlin near my books if you can help it.”

Gwen laughs, but it is pained. Leon stays by her side, her childhood rock still in adulthood, but it is not really him from whom she seeks comfort, no matter how readily he tries to offer it.

Soon Gwen will have no one left to lose.

Merlin avoids her a while, which hurts, but it is a dull ache, softened by all the others Gwen has endured. She does not even have it within herself to be angry at him. She simply misses him desperately, for it feels as though he might as well be dead. She bids Gaius goodnight, allows him to spend his final moments with Merlin and Hunith rather than her. She is too used to this, by now, to think that clinging will do any good.

There is a knock on the door; at Gwen’s call, Merlin slips inside, eyes lowered in deference. Gwen’s ribs crack in two.

“Merlin,” she says, and stands from her desk. Merlin swallows.

“Hullo, Gwen.”

She hesitates, crossing over to him. “Gaius?”

Merlin shakes his head. Gwen’s shoulders sink. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” Merlin looks up at her. “Me too, Gwen.”

She studies his face; the sallow hollows of his cheeks, the downward turn of his eyes, the circles beneath them. She encircles her arms around him. Merlin responds in kind.

“I missed you,” he whispers, into her hair, and Gwen holds him tighter, arms across his shoulders. He is thinner than Arthur, and taller, but he is, at least, familiar, and Gwen presses her face into him to stop herself crying. Merlin’s palms are flat and warm against her back.

“How could you leave me?” she asks, and Merlin sighs.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Gwen.”

She pulls back, dragging her hands across him. “Sit with me?”

Merlin nods.

***

Wine is brought up. Gwen has tried not to touch the stuff in the months following Arthur’s death, too afraid of the stories from her youth, the idea of chasing her grief away with drink, but she thinks tonight is the first night she truly needs it. She sips her cup slowly, settled by the fire with Merlin, in Arthur’s favourite chair. Perhaps because he is on her mind (though it is not often he isn’t), but she recognises the shirt Merlin wears as one of his, and something both jealous and pitiful swells in her gut.

“I couldn’t stay,” says Merlin, long fingers cupped around his own tankard, staring into it. “I don’t know how you wanted me to. His death was my fault.”

Gwen shakes her head. “Merlin.”

Merlin smiles, though it is not very nice. She sees it as directed to himself. “Don’t. I was supposed to protect him, and I didn’t. It was my destiny. I was meant to look after him.”

“You did,” says Gwen. “You always did, Merlin.”

“Not enough.”

“Yes,” says Gwen, and puts aside her goblet to take his hand. “Yes, enough.”

Merlin frowns, expression pained, and looks away. He is pale but resolved, and Gwen grips his hand tighter, waiting for what must be coming, what she has waited so long to hear.

“The sorcerer,” Merlin says, “At Camlann.”

“Yes.”

Merlin’s fingers twitch. He shifts in his seat, and sweat beads at his temple, and Gwen finds she does not need to hear it. She squeezes his hand.

“I have often thought of him,” she admits. “Wondered if he could have done more. Why he did not make himself known sooner. But I think I know, now, and I—I do not fault him for it. I’ve had a long time to think. There is only— one thing, that I should like to say to him, given the chance.”

Merlin’s eyes flick away. Gwen places her fingertips under his chin, tips his face gently up to hers so their eyes meet, the fire crackling beside them.

“I’m so sorry,” Gwen says. “I’m so sorry, Merlin. And as much as I wish you had not borne this— I am so grateful that you have.”

Merlin closes his eyes, leaning into her hand as she cups his cheek. When he opens them again, his gaze is shrewd, unsuprised.

“How long have you known?”

She puts her hands back in her lap. “The battle at Camlann was when my suspicion first formed. Gaius, later, gave me cause to believe it. But have I not always said there was something about you, Merlin?”

“You have,” says Merlin, and sighs heavily. “I’m sorry, Gwen. I lied to you, to everyone, for years, I know I did. But I had to protect him. I had to.”

“Merlin,” she interrupts, “that is not why I’m angry. Of course you had to keep it secret. The only blame I place is on myself, as your friend, for letting you suffer alone.”

The fire is dying. Gwen reaches out and places a new log atop it, taking relief in busying her hands. She straightens her skirts before sitting back down, cataloguing the heartbreak on Merlin’s face. When he speaks, it is low, quiet.

“You _are_ angry, then,” says Merlin, in the space between them.

“I have carried a whole kingdom through the loss of their king,” Gwen says. She presses her lips together, glancing off to the side. “But I have lost my husband, too. And that has been far from easy.”

“I’ll stay here, for you,” says Merlin. His eyes flicker around the room. “I— if you want me to stay, Gwen. I will.”

She nods. She even manages to smile. “Please.”

***

Merlin takes the physician’s job. An old friend of Gaius’, Alice, returns to Camelot also, to work with him. Gwen had directed more resources than necessary into finding her, so that Gaius might see her again before his passing, and though it had not been fast enough Alice returns anyway, and her and Merlin work together, healing with magic and science combined.

Gaius’ funeral is a day of great sadness for a great many. He is offered the highest honours, the equal of which Gwen remembers only from Lancelot’s death. The pyre is surrounded by many of Camelot’s people, those whose scrapped knees and fevers and broken limbs he healed, all of them come to pay their respects. Merlin stands at Gwen’s right, his mother on his, and they line up linked like daisies, Merlin’s hand cool in Gwen’s.

She holds her chin high, meets Leon’s eye opposite, and signals for the pyre to be lit.

***

On the anniversary of Arthur’s death, she asks Merlin to take her to his resting place. It is just her and him and Leon, because nobody wanted her going off without adequate protection, especially while there exists no heir. Gwen had only just managed to stop herself from snapping that Arthur had been permitted to do many a stupid thing while king, with nary a thought for himself, and nobody had raised the issue then. But she talks them down to just Leon, for he is Arthur’s friend, too, and has long shouldered his pain in effort of supporting her, and deserves this much.

Merlin takes them as far to Avalon as he is willing, and then it is Leon who walks with Gwen the rest of the way, her hand on his arm as they navigate the woods. Gwen does not blame Merlin for not coming, understands his reluctance to return here, but she is restless until she reaches the clearing, the water spreading out for miles in front of her.

It is a beautiful view.

Gwen takes her hand from Sir Leon’s arm. When he turns to speak to her, his voice is hoarse.

“My lady, may I--?”

“Of course,” says Gwen, ever the diplomat. Leon takes several steps forward, to where the water laps the shore, and drops to his knee, bowing his head for several minutes. Gwen watches him. When he stands, she clasps his hand between both of hers.

“A moment? Please.”

“Gwen,” says Leon, eyes cutting across the glade. “I shouldn’t leave you.”

She gives him a reassuring smile. “I promise I will scream very loud should trouble arise.”

He huffs, and kisses her hand. “As you wish, my Queen. I will wait with Merlin.”

She waits until she can no longer hear his footsteps, the crackle of branches, and then turns back to the water. Sunlight dances along its surface, glittering and gleaming like jewels, and birdsong decorates the air. It is a good resting place.

The water is cold on Gwen’s ankles, worming its way up her dress as she enters the lake, past her knees and thighs until it sits gently round her waist, simmering with soft movement. The sunlight blinds her, so much so that she envisions Arthur’s boat aflame in the distance, his body burning with all the brightness of his glory. Gwen’s palms graze the water, fingers curled around his ring.

“Come back,” she whispers, unsure where she is meant to be looking. She knows of the prophecy, now, and her need is very great indeed. “Please, Arthur. Come back, come back, come back.”

Nothing happens. Gwen presses the hand fisted round the ring to her mouth, and still there is nothing. She moves without accord; the ring is hurled high and fast away from her, cutting a gleaming arc through the air before it plunges into the lakes depths far beyond her reach.

“No,” whispers Gwen, when her senses return. “Oh, no, please. _Please_ —"

She sobs, hand to her mouth. For one moment, everything hangs in the balance. The water laps. The birds sing. Arthur does not come.

She gives in. She turns back to the shore, moving slowly back to solid ground, helped by the waters current. It encourages her on her return, as if eager to remove her from itself. She supposes, given how many Merlin has farewelled here, that it is no longer a place for the living.

Her dress gains weight with each inch released from the lake, becoming a waterlogged mess she has to haul along with her, making each stumbling step worse. She climbs out of the lake on shaky legs, shivering from the cold and her tears, and looks at where the dirt moves from dry to sodden. Arthur’s ring glitters on the bank.

She leans down to retrieve it. Gazes back over the lake.

Still Arthur does not come.

***

It is this that lets Gwen finally let go. She returns, stumbling, to Merlin and Leon and the former must see something in her face, because he abandons his horse immediately, rushing to her and catching her when she crumples. Gwen cries into Merlin tunic, arms wrapped around him even though she is sopping wet and getting him the same, and sobs and sobs until her cries are just noises, terrible gasping things that rattle in her chest and out through her lungs. Merlin does not soothe her. He just holds her up, and that is what she needs.

“He’s dead,” cries Gwen. Merlin holds her tighter. “He’s dead, Merlin, he’s—he’s _dead_ —”

“I know,” he says, and hugs her so hard the pain overpowers that which Gwen has carried so long in her heart. Arthur's ring is cold in her palm. “I know, Gwen.”

***

That night, Merlin sleeps in her bed.

It’s not— Gwen worries that if found out it will be taken for something it is not, assumed as a love affair, and that is almost enough to persuade her against it, but as it is it is just so _nice_. For too long her bed has been empty, devoid of Arthur and the love he had for her, and it is _nice_ to have Merlin slip beneath the covers with her, even though being in Arthur’s room makes him jumpy. She settles against him, tucks her head under his chin, and laces their fingers together to rest them over his heart.

“I miss him,” Gwen confesses, her eyes open against the dark, gazing at where the moonlight hits the carvings on Arthur’s dresser. Inside it his shirts still line the walls, moth-eaten and holey because Gwen cannot get rid of them, but also cannot look at them. She turns her face further into Merlin’s neck, and around them it is silent but for the flap of the curtains, the distant sound of the lower town.

Too suddenly, Merlin says: “I loved him.”

Her heart stutters.

“Me, too,” she says.

“Yeah,” says Merlin. His breathing is rocky beneath her, the rise and fall of his chest erratic. “But, Gwen. I mean that I— that I _loved_ him, Gwen.”

Gwen swallows. “He loved you, too,” she says. A short breath leaves Merlin’s nose.

“No,” he says. “You’re his wife. He loved _you_.”

Gwen adjusts her grip on his hand, twists closer to him, and is relieved when Merlin’s other arm curls round her. She has lost so many people; she will cling to Merlin so long as she can.

“I know,” she says, to the space above his heart. She misses Arthur terribly. “I know he did. But he loved you, too.”

***

It would be so easy, Gwen thinks, to give in to it. Merlin stays with her, now, and it is both better and worse. Arthur hangs heavy between them, neither willing to mention or speak of him, but able to understand each other’s pain, the necessity of this, in a way that no one else can. Leon tells her it isn’t good for her. That wallowing with Merlin only forces her harder into misery. Gwen cannot even begin to explain the complexities of the thing, and waves his concerns away best she can. When he presses, she reminds him who is his Queen, and his silence makes clear he is hurt. She cannot find it in herself to regret it.

Gwen has lost so many people. She would rather lose him to this than death.

Mithian comes to stay, in the summer. She wisely keeps from speaking of Gwen’s late husband, and her company is far from unwelcome. Gwen asks after her progress in Nemeth, the implementation of magic, which she understands has flourished. Mithian is animated when she speaks, face flushed and eyes alight as she talks of the future, of that which Gwen has already built, shining and golden in the present. Something warm settles in Gwen’s belly, and she catches Merlin’s eye where he sits across from her, holds the gaze a few seconds too long.

It would be so, so easy.

***

Merlin comes back with her to her rooms. He always does, now, but this is the first time it happens with some sort of undercurrent, an odd pull between them that Gwen hasn’t felt in years, hot and shameful and burning red. She hovers by the door as he closes it, tongue heavy in her mouth, their bodies too close.

“Merlin,” she says.

Gwen thinks, later, that if Merlin had given in in entirety, if his lips had hit hers with force, had her hands scrabbled for purchase in his hair, that she should have burst into tears before they even made it to bed. But Merlin has always been kind; he leans in, nudges her forehead with his, hovers there with his breath hot on her cheek, the promise dangling between them.

“You’re my best friend, Gwen,” he says, and Gwen tips her face up to meet his lips.

***

He finds her overlooking the city the next morning, running her thumb over Arthur’s ring absently, leaning against the castle stones. The summer’s breeze is warm even this early in the day, pushing Gwen’s curls gently from her face, fluttering like butterflies. Underneath her the market is bustling as stalls are set up by druids and villagers alike, and the city buzzes with life and joy as it has done ever since magic grew up like flowers between the cobbles. It is flourishing.

Merlin stands silently at her side for a moment, then makes a blue butterfly flap its way through Gwen’s view. She smiles at it, slips Arthur’s ring on her finger.

“I am a good Queen,” she says. The sun is warm on her neck, and Merlin smiles.

“Yes,” he says. When she looks at him, his gaze is far away, looking to the east. “You know, Arthur and I built this kingdom. Or, I mean, Arthur did. I helped.”

Gwen snorts. Merlin turns to look at her, the back of his hand knocking gently against hers, his gaze earnest and eyes blue.

“I think we built it for you.”

She smiles at that, slides their palms together and entwines her fingers with his.

“You and me,” says Gwen, and Merlin nods.

“If you like. You and me.”

Gwen has lost so many people.

She is glad to have found this.


End file.
